by Kate Morton
Lord Gifford looked up and the lamplight reflected in the glass of his spectacles. ‘It would appear we have a waiting game ahead.’
He paused and I took the opportunity to hand tea to the ladies. Jemima took hers automatically, without looking at me, and lowered it to her lap. Lady Violet waved me away. Only Fanny took the proffered cup and saucer with any appetite.
‘Lord Gifford,’ Mr Frederick said in a calm voice, ‘how do you take your tea?’
‘Milk but no sugar,’ Lord Gifford said, running his fingers along his collar, separating the cotton from his sticky neck.
I lifted the teapot carefully and began to pour, mindful of the steaming spout. I handed him the cup and saucer, which he took without seeing me. ‘Business is well, Frederick?’ he said, rubbing his pillowy lips together before sipping his tea.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mr Frederick nod. ‘Well enough, Lord Gifford,’ he said. ‘My men have made the transition from motor car to aeroplane production and there’s another contract with the war ministry up for tender.’
Lord Gifford raised a brow. ‘Better hope that chap Luxton doesn’t apply. One hears he’s made enough planes for every man, woman and child in Britain!’
‘I won’t argue he’s produced a lot of planes, Lord Gifford, but you wouldn’t catch me flying in one.’
‘No?’
‘Mass production,’ said Mr Frederick, by way of explanation. ‘People working too quickly, trying to keep up with conveyor belts, no time to make sure things are done properly.’
‘The ministry doesn’t seem to mind.’
‘The ministry can’t see past the bottom line,’ said Mr Frederick. ‘But they will. Once they see the quality we’re producing they won’t sign up for any more of Luxton’s tin cans.’ And then he laughed rather too loudly.
I glanced up, despite myself. It seemed to me that for a man who had lost his father and only brother within a matter of days, he was coping remarkably well. Too well, I thought, and I began to doubt Myra’s fond description of him, Hannah’s devotion, tallying him more with David’s characterisation of a petty and embittered man.
‘Any word from young David?’ Lord Gifford said.
As I handed Mr Frederick his tea, he shifted his arm abruptly, knocking the cup and its steaming contents onto the Bessarabian carpet.
‘Oh!’ I said, all feeling draining from my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
He stared at me, read something in my face. He parted his lips to speak then changed his mind.
A sharp intake of breath from Jemima drew all eyes in synchronicity. She straightened, clutched at her side, walked flat hands across her tight belly.
‘What is it?’ Lady Violet said from beneath her lace veil.
Jemima did not respond, engaged, or so it seemed, in silent communication with her babe. She stared, unseeing, directly ahead, still prodding her belly.
‘Jemima?’ This was Lady Violet again, concern icing a voice already chilled by loss.
Jemima inclined her head as if to listen. She said, barely a whisper, ‘He stopped moving.’ Her breaths had become rapid. ‘He’s been active all the way through, but he’s stopped.’
‘You must go and rest,’ Lady Violet said. ‘It’s this blessed heat.’ She swallowed. ‘This blessed heat.’ She looked about, seeking corroboration. ‘That, and…’ She shook her head, tightened her lips, unwilling, unable perhaps, to speak the final clause. ‘That’s all it is.’ She drew up all her courage, straightened, and said firmly, ‘You must rest.’
‘No,’ Jemima said, bottom lip trembling. ‘I want to be here. For James. And for you.’
Lady Violet took Jemima’s hands, withdrew them gently from her stomach and cradled them within her own. ‘I know you do.’ She reached out, stroked tentatively Jemima’s mousy brown hair. It was a simple gesture but in its enactment I was reminded that Lady Violet was herself a mother. Without moving, she said, ‘Grace. Help Jemima upstairs so that she might rest. Leave all that. Hamilton will collect it later.’
‘Yes, my Lady.’ I curtseyed and came to Jemima’s side. I reached down and helped her stand, glad for the opportunity to leave the room and its misery.
On my way out, Jemima beside me, I realised what was different about the room, aside from the dark and the heat. The mantle clock, which usually marked each passing second with detached consistency, was silent. Its slender black hands frozen in arabesque, observing Lady Ashbury’s instructions to stop all the clocks at ten minutes before five, the moment of her husband’s passing.
THE FALL OF ICARUS
With Jemima settled in her room, I returned to the servants’ hall where Mr Hamilton was inspecting the pots and pans Katie had been scrubbing. He looked up from Mrs Townsend’s favourite sauté pan only to tell me that the Hartford sisters were down by the old boathouse and I was to take them refreshments along with the lemonade. He had not yet learned of the spilled tea and I was glad. I fetched a jug of lemonade from the ice room, loaded it onto a tray with two tall glasses and a platter of Mrs Townsend’s ribbon sandwiches, and left via the servants’ hall door.
I stood on the top step, blinking into the clear unbroken glare while my eyes adjusted. In a month without rain, colour had been bleached from the estate. The sun was midway across the sky and its direct light provided a final wash, giving the garden the hazy look of one of the watercolours that hung in Lady Violet’s boudoir. Although I wore my cap, the line down the centre of my head where I parted my hair remained exposed and was instantly scorched.
I crossed the Theatre Lawn, freshly mown and rich with the soporific scent of dry grass. Dudley crouched nearby, clipping the border hedges. The blades of his shears were smeared with green sap, patches of bare metal glistened.
He must have sensed me nearby because he turned and squinted. ‘She’s a hot one,’ he said, hand shielding his eyes.
‘Hot enough to cook eggs on the railway,’ said I, quoting Myra, wondering whether there was truth in the expression.
At lawn’s edge, a grand set of grey-stone stairs led into Lady Ashbury’s rose garden. Pink and white buds hugged the trellises, alive with the warm drone of diligent bees hovering about their yellow hearts.
I passed beneath the arbour, unlatched the kissing gate and started down the Long Walk: a stretch of grey cobblestones set amongst yellow and white stonecrops. Halfway along, tall hornbeam hedges gave way to the miniature yew that bordered the Egeskov Garden. I blinked as a couple of topiaries came to life, then smiled at myself and the pair of indignant ducks, mallards with green feathers, that had wandered up from the lake and now stood, regarding me with shiny black eyes.
At the end of the Egeskov Garden was the second kissing gate, the forgotten sister (for there is always a forgotten sister), victim of the wiry jasmine tendrils. On the other side lay the Icarus fountain, and beyond, at lake’s edge, the boathouse.
The gate’s clasp was beginning to rust and I had to lay down my load that I might unlatch it. I nestled the tray on a flat spot amongst a cluster of strawberry plants and used my fingers to prise open the latch. I pushed open the gate, picked up the lemonade and continued, through a cloud of jasmine perfume, toward the fountain.
Though Eros and Psyche sat vast and magnificent in the front lawn, a prologue to the grand house itself, there was something wonderful-a mysterious and melancholic aspect-about the smaller fountain, hidden within its sunny clearing at the bottom of the south garden.
The circular pool of stacked stone stood two-feet high, twenty-feet across at its widest point. It was lined with tiny glass tiles, azure blue like the necklace of Ceylonese sapphires Lord Ashbury had brought back for Lady Violet after serving in the Far East. From the centre emerged a huge craggy block of russet marble, the height of two men, thick at base but tapering to a peak. Midway up, creamy marble against the brown, the lifesize figure of Icarus had been carved in a position of recline. His wings, pale marble etched to give the impression of feathers, were strapped to his outspread
arms and fell behind, weeping over the rock. Rising from the pool to tend the fallen figure were three nymphs, long hair looped and coiled about angelic faces: one held a small harp, one wore a coronet of woven ivy leaves, and one reached beneath Icarus’s torso, white hands on creamy skin, to pull him from the deep.
On that summer’s day a pair of purple martins, oblivious to the statue’s beauty, swooped overhead, alighting atop the marble rock, only to take flight again, skim the pond surface and fill their beaks with water. As I watched them, I was overcome with heat and a desire, strong and sudden, to plunge my hand into the cool water. I glanced back toward the distant house, far too intent upon its grief to notice if a housemaid, all the way at the bottom of the south park, paused a moment to cool herself.
I rested the tray on the rim of the pool and placed one tentative knee on the tiles, warm through my black stockings. I leaned forward, held out my hand, withdrew it again at the first touch of sun-kissed water. I rolled up my sleeve, reached out again, ready to submerge my arm.
There came a laugh, tinkling music in the summer stillness.
I froze, listened, inclined my head and peered beyond the statue.
I saw them then, Hannah and Emmeline, not at the boathouse after all, but perched along the rim on the other side of the fountain. My shock was compounded: they had removed their black mourning dresses and wore only petticoats, corset covers, and lace-trimmed drawers. Their boots, too, lay discarded on the white stone path that rounded the pool. Their long hair glistened in complicity with the sun. I glanced back to the house, wondering at their daring. Wondering whether my presence implicated me somehow. Wondering whether I feared or hoped it did.
Emmeline lay on her back: feet together, legs bent, knees, as white as her petticoat, saluting the clear blue sky. Her outer arm was arranged so that her head rested on her hand. The other arm-soft pale skin, a stranger to the sun-was extended straight over the pool, her wrist dancing a lazy figure eight so that alternate fingers pricked the pool’s surface. Tiny ripples lapped one another keenly.
Hannah sat beside, one leg curled beneath her, the other bent so her chin rested on her knee, her toes flirting carelessly with the water. Her arms were wrapped around her raised leg and from one hand dangled a piece of paper so thin as to be almost transparent beneath the sun’s glare.
I withdrew my arm, rolled down my sleeve, collected myself. With one last longing glance at the sparkling pool, I picked up the tray.
As I drew closer, I could hear them talking.
‘… I think he’s being awfully pig-headed,’ Emmeline said. They had accumulated a pile of strawberries between them, and she popped one in her mouth, tossed the stalk into the garden.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Pa’s always been stubborn.’
‘All the same,’ Emmeline said. ‘To flat out refuse is just silly. If David can be bothered to write to us all the way from France, the least Pa could do is read the thing.’
Hannah gazed toward the statue, inclined her head so that the pool’s reflected ripples shimmered, in ribbons, across her face. ‘David made a fool of Pa. He went behind his back, did the very thing Pa told him not to.’
‘Pooh. It’s been over a year.’
‘Pa doesn’t forgive easily. David knows that.’
‘But it’s such a funny letter. Read again the bit about the mess hall, the pudding.’
‘I’m not going to read it again. I shouldn’t have read it the first three times. It’s far too coarse for your young ears.’ She held out the letter. It cast a shadow across Emmeline’s face. ‘Here. Read it yourself. There’s an enlightening illustration on the second page.’ There was a warm breath of wind then and the paper fluttered so that I could see the black lines of a sketch in the top corner.
My footsteps crunched the white stones of the path and Emmeline looked up, saw me standing behind Hannah. ‘Ooh, lemonade,’ she said, withdrawing her arm from the pool, letter forgotten. ‘Good. I’m dying of thirst.’
Hannah turned, tucked the letter into her waistband. ‘Grace,’ she said, smiling.
‘We’re hiding from Old Grope-ford,’ Emmeline said, swinging to sit upright, her back to the fountain. ‘Ooh, that sun’s delicious. It’s gone straight to my head.’
‘And your cheeks,’ Hannah said.
Emmeline raised her face to the sun, closed her eyes. ‘I don’t mind. I wish it could be summer all year round.’
‘Has Lord Gifford been and gone, Grace?’ Hannah said.
‘I couldn’t say for sure, miss.’ I rested the tray on the fountain edge. ‘I should think so. He was in the drawing room when I served morning tea and Her Ladyship didn’t mention he was staying.’
‘I hope not,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s enough that’s unpleasant at the moment without him making excuses to look down my dress all afternoon.’
A small wrought-iron garden table was nestled by a cluster of pink and yellow honeysuckles and I carried it over to hold the refreshments. I planted its curled feet amongst the stones of the path and set the tray on top; started to pour the lemonades.
Between thumb and index finger, Hannah twirled a strawberry by its stalk. ‘You didn’t happen to hear any of what Lord Gifford was saying, did you, Grace?’
I hesitated. I wasn’t supposed to be listening when I served the tea.
‘About Grandfather’s estate,’ she said. ‘About Riverton.’ Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and I suspected she felt as uncomfortable asking as I did answering.
I swallowed, set down the jug. ‘I… I’m not sure, miss…’
‘She did!’ Emmeline exclaimed. ‘I can tell-she’s blushing. You did, didn’t you?’ She leaned forward, eyes wide. ‘Well then, tell us. What’s to happen? Is it to go to Pa? Are we to stay?’
‘I don’t know, miss,’ I said, shrinking, as I always did, when faced with Emmeline’s imperious attention. ‘Nobody knows.’
Emmeline took a glass of lemonade. ‘Someone must know,’ she said haughtily. ‘Lord Gifford, I’d have thought. Why else was he here today if not to talk over Grandfather’s will?’
‘What I mean, miss, is it depends.’
‘On what?’
Hannah spoke then. ‘On Aunt Jemima’s baby.’ Her eyes met mine. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Grace?’
‘Yes miss,’ I said quietly. ‘At least I think that’s what they were saying.’
Emmeline said, ‘On Aunt Jemima’s baby?’
‘If it’s a boy,’ Hannah said thoughtfully, ‘then everything is rightly his. If not, Pa becomes Lord Ashbury.’
Emmeline, who had just popped a strawberry in her mouth, clapped her hand to her lips and laughed. ‘Imagine. Pa, lord of the manor. It’s too silly.’ The peach ribbon that threaded around the waistline of her petticoat had snagged on the pool rim and started to unravel. A long thread zigzagged down her leg. I would have to remember to mend it later. ‘Do you think he would want us to live here?’
Oh, yes, I thought hopefully. Riverton had been so quiet the year past. Nought to do but re-dust empty rooms and try not to worry too much about those still fighting.
‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said. ‘I certainly hope not. It’s bad enough being trapped here over summer. The days are twice as long in the country and there’s only half as much with which to fill them.’
‘I’ll bet he would.’
‘No,’ Hannah said resolutely. ‘Pa couldn’t bear the separation from his factory.’
‘I don’t know,’ Emmeline said. ‘If there’s one thing Pa loves better than his silly motors, it’s Riverton. It’s his favourite place in the whole world.’ She cast her eyes skyward. ‘Though why anyone would want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to-’ She broke off, gasped. ‘Oh, Hannah, do you know what I’ve just thought of? If Pa becomes a lord, then that makes us Honourable, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose it does,’ Hannah said. ‘For what that’s worth.’
Emmeline jumped up, rolled her eyes. ‘It’s worth a lot.’ She
put her glass back on the table and climbed onto the rim of the pool. ‘The Honourable Emmeline Hartford of Riverton Manor. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’ She turned and curtseyed to her reflection, batted her eyelids and presented her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, handsome sir. I’m the Honourable Emmeline Hartford.’ She laughed, delighted by her own skit, and began to skip along the tiled edge, arms out to the sides for balance, repeating the titled introduction between bursts of renewed laughter.
Hannah watched her for a moment, bemused. ‘Have you any sisters, Grace?’
‘No miss,’ I said. ‘Nor brothers neither.’
‘Really,’ she said, as if existence without siblings was something she hadn’t considered.
‘I was not so lucky, miss. It’s just Mother and me.’
She looked at me, squinted into the sun. ‘Your mother. She was in service here.’
It was a statement rather than a question. ‘Yes, miss. Until I was born, miss.’
‘You’re very like her. To look at, I mean.’
I was taken aback. ‘Miss?’
‘I saw her picture. In Grandmamma’s family scrapbook. One of the household photographs from last century.’ She must have felt my confusion, for she rushed on, ‘Not that I was looking for it, you mustn’t think that, Grace. I was trying to find a certain picture of my own mother when I came across it. The resemblance to you was striking. The same pretty face, same kind eyes.’
I had never seen a photograph of Mother-not from when she was younger-and Hannah’s description was so at odds with the Mother I knew that I was seized by a sudden and irrepressible longing to see it for myself. I knew where Lady Ashbury kept her scrapbook-the left-hand drawer of her writing desk. And there were times, many times now Myra was away, that I was left alone to clean the drawing room. If I made sure the household was busy elsewhere, and if I were very quick, it wouldn’t be difficult, surely, to glimpse it for myself? I wondered if I dared.